The Buck Passes Flynn

by Gregory Mcdonald

  “Then the next question,” Flynn said, “is why everyone in Ada, Texas, received one hundred thousand dollars?”

  “I know you talked with the preacher and his wife,” Ducey said. “What’s their explanation?”

  “Their explanation can be reported easily,” Flynn said. “Their one-hundred-thousand-dollar packages came from the Lord. Everyone else’s one-hundred-thousand-dollar packages came from the devil.”

  “Not much help,” she said.

  “Not all that much.” Flynn moved his glass forward and spoke to the counterman. “Here. Could we have more water, please?”

  The man seemed to consider the request before fulfilling it.

  Flynn said, “It seems everyone in Ada, Texas, received a package with one hundred thousand dollars cash in it.”

  “But, Flynn, is that all? Is that enough to make people pull up stakes, leave their homes, their ranches, their cattle, their friends?”

  “I think so.” Flynn drained his water glass.

  “Come on. These ranches are valuable. Some must be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. People’s homes.”

  “Funny things have been happening to money,” Flynn said. “Since I’ve been in Texas I’ve heard the expression ‘cash money.’ There’s money and there’s cash money, apparently.”

  “The equipment they own. A combine these days costs more than fifty thousand dollars.”

  “Remember, Ducey Webb: each person in town received one hundred thousand dollars in cash. One hundred thousand for Papa Bear, one hundred thousand for Mama Bear, one hundred thousand for each child bear, and only the pig woman didn’t care. A husband and wife with two kids therefore received four hundred thousand dollars. That’s cash money. All spendable. No taxes need be paid on it, if they keep quiet about it.”

  “Still, Flynn …”

  “You’ve seen Ada, Texas?” Flynn asked.

  “Yeah …”

  “Suppose you were a poor old boy workin’ your butt off out here, scrubbin’ around in this earth for no good reason except that you were born to it, ranchin’ a piece of land because someone once told you it was your land, but in truth you’re mortgaged to the hilt and the banks have come to own the land you’re breakin’ your back over, and they also own your tractor and your truck and your living-room chair. Because people have been sellin’ you credit so long every year you’re paying more and more interest, all your costs are going up, through interest payments, increasing taxes, inflation, what you regard as money makes less and less sense to you. And then one morning you find four hundred thousand dollars cash money outside your front door. Now, tell me, Ms. Webb, what would you do? Give half of it to the government in taxes and the other half to the banks and go back to mendin’ your fences, still makin’ a tough living, still in debt? Or would you decide to go ‘see what other suns and moons there are,’ to borrow a line from a play whose name I forget?” Flynn drank her water. “We’re all in prisons, Ms. Webb. There aren’t many of us—just the preacher and the odd eccentric—who doesn’t believe the key to letting us out of that prison is money. Cash money.”

  “I was warned about your philosophical moments.” Ducey Webb grinned.

  “I call it thinkin’, myself,” said Flynn.

  “You just said that cash is enough to justify a whole townful of people running off, leaving their homes, their ranches, their friends….”

  “Runnin’ off from Ada, Texas, to be specific,” Flynn said. “No insult to the old place intended. It’s not that bad a place. A man can flap his elbows here.”

  “Okay, Flynn, if we cut the crap?”

  “You’re just thirsty,” said Flynn, patiently. He said to the counterman, loud enough to be heard by all present, “More water, please.”

  A young man down the counter said, “More water, please. More water, please.” He drawled Flynn’s lilt “What they whisperin’ about, Sam?”

  The counterman refilled their glasses.

  “I’ve got to admit to you, Ms. Webb, it’s an astoundin’ idea—someone runnin’ around droppin’ a hundred thousand dollars in cash money on people. Not the usual thing at all. Not easy to put the mind around.”

  “You’ve come to Ada, Texas, Flynn, and established, apparently to your own satisfaction, that everyone in town did receive this money.” She too was keeping her voice low. “Can you tell me the direction in which you expect your investigation to go from here?”

  “There are two questions,” said Flynn. “Who is being so generous? Why is he, or are they, being so generous? It’s my fervent hope to have both questions investigated at one and the same time. Obviously, whoever is doing it does not want us to find out who he is. At least not yet. If he’s got this kind of money, our boyo benefactor can obviously prevent our finding out who he is for a long time—maybe forever, if he wants. Therefore, I think I must try to discover why he is doing it.”

  “And how do you intend to do that?”

  “By peepin’ around the land, Ms. Webb, and trying to discover the results of this astoundin’ generosity. Do you understand that at all, or would you put it down with another of your four-letter words?”

  “What do you mean, ‘the results’?”

  “It’s a simple enough jump, Ms. Webb, isn’t it? Or is my logic in need of overhaulin’ by a man with a wrench? If you don’t know why someone is doing something, you look to the results of his doing it.”

  “Sometimes,” Ducey Webb said, “people don’t get the results they desire.”

  “Sometimes,” said Flynn, “they do.”

  “You mean you’re going to chase the two thousand ex-citizens of Ada, Texas, all over the country—the world—and ask them … what? ‘How are you?’ ‘What’s happening?’ ”

  “I mean to take a samplin’,” said Flynn. “A wee samplin’.”

  “Where are you going to start?”

  “Las Vegas. But I wish to speak with the preacher and his wife again, first.”

  “Would you like to listen to me for a while?” Ducey said. “I have some ideas of my own.”

  “It’s well time you contributed to the conversation,” said Flynn, “having entered it with nothing more than a letter from the President and a list of questions.”

  “My first idea is oil, Flynn. Haven’t you thought of oil?”

  “I’ve thought of oil,” said Flynn. “Frequently.”

  “Someone wants this area depopulated.”

  “That could be.”

  “Maybe someone knows there’s oil under all this land and wanted to get the people off it.”

  “Not impossible,” said Flynn. “But if I were a businessman and I wanted to drill for oil, the last thing I’d do would be to scatter the owners of the land and the oil rights to the four corners of the world. If I were giving the owners all this money, at least I’d want some pieces of paper back, signed, sayin’ I had the right to drill for oil on their land while they’re off lookin’ at the Pacific Ocean.”

  “Oh.” She straightened her back. “But no, Flynn. Through the banks. I mean, you said all the ranches around here have heavy mortgages. Within two months, three months—right about now, probably—the banks would be taking over all these ranches because the mortgages aren’t being paid. The owners can’t be found.”

  “I think I see,” said Flynn.

  “See? First you get the people off their ranches …”

  “Which cost almost one hundred and eighty-six million dollars.”

  “Then you buy the ranches from the banks.”

  “For the value of their mortgages, is that it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is Ada, Texas, worth that much?”

  “The oil under it may be.”

  “I don’t know,” said Flynn. “I don’t know. Sure, we’re payin’ a fearful price for oil, aren’t we, though?”

  Down the counter, one of the three young men—the one who had said nothing—took out a switchblade and began to pick his teeth with it.

  They ha
d finished their chili and hamburgers before Flynn had entered Bob’s Diner.

  The dirty dishes were still on the counter in front of them, as were fresh cans of beer.

  Ducey Webb said, “My second theory, Flynn, is that you and I are being diddled.”

  “How’s that? Diddled?”

  “Diddled,” she said. “The object obviously is to depopulate Ada, Texas.”

  “It could be, I say again.”

  “Either because of something that is here … or because of something that isn’t here.”

  “No need to take a spanner to your logic,” said Flynn. “But may I ask you—politely enough, mind—what the hell do you mean?”

  “Supposing the Government of the United States wanted this area depopulated?”

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know for what. Thermonuclear testing?”

  “There’s an explosive idea.”

  “To use the area as a radioactive-materials dump?”

  “There’s a deeper idea.”

  There was a crash from the other end of the counter.

  A chili bowl was smashed on the floor.

  No one—not the counterman, not the three young men—moved to do anything about it.

  The four men were watching Flynn.

  “We’re really cooking up some ideas here,” Flynn said. “But tell me, Ducey … do I recall the name right?”

  “Yes. Ducey.”

  “Don’t you have a letter in your pocket from the President of the United States sayin’ the whole thing is a mystery even to the government he runs?”

  “It may be a mystery to him. The president has no idea what goes on in most branches of his government.”

  “But something like this …”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time agencies of the United States Government worked at cross-purposes.”

  “Indeed it wouldn’t,” said Flynn. “Indeed not. No indeed.”

  Flynn took out his wallet and placed a dollar bill on the counter.

  “For the water,” he said to the counterman.

  The counterman approached, staring at the dollar bill.

  “I’ll see you in Austin tonight,” Ducey said.

  “What makes you think I’m going back to Austin?”

  “Because I saw you leave your hotel this morning without any luggage,” she answered. “As I was driving up.”

  The counterman said, “What’s this?”

  “A dollar,” said Flynn. “For the water.”

  “Are you insulting me?” asked the counterman.

  At the end of the counter, the three young men stood up. They began to approach.

  One still had the opened knife in his hand.

  “You want more than a dollar?” said Flynn.

  He had put his wallet away.

  The counterman slid the dollar toward Flynn.

  “In Texas, mister,” the counterman said, “we don’t charge a thirsty man for a drink of water.”

  “I see,” said Flynn.

  “Take your dollar.”

  “I will,” said Flynn.

  He did.

  Flynn stood up and found the three young men standing close to him.

  The young man with the knife said, “Where’re you from, mister?”

  “I guess you could say I’m from Ireland,” said Flynn.

  “Ireland?” said the young man who had blushed.

  The man with the knife said, “I knew you were a stranger, right enough.”

  “Yeats was Irish,” said the blusher. “You know Yeats, the poet?”

  “I do,” said Flynn. “I mean, humbly, I know his work.”

  The blusher said:

  “I will arise and go now, and

  go to Innisfree,

  And a small cabin build there,

  of clay and wattles made.”

  “Indeed,” said Flynn.

  The young man who had said “Uh! Uh! Uh!” and tried to imitate Flynn’s lilt said, “G.B.S. was Irish, too.”

  “G.B.S.?”

  “George Bernard Shaw.”

  “He was,” said Flynn. “Isn’t it marvelous what Irish ears have made of the English language?”

  The man with the knife said, “How do you like Texas?”

  “It’s a surprising place,” said Flynn. “I take it you gentlemen are not from Ada?”

  They laughed.

  “No one’s from Ada,” one said. “Not anymore. They split.”

  “It looked a deserted place,” said Flynn. “What happened to it?”

  “Everyone up and left.”

  “But why?”

  “Why not?”

  Mostly they were looking at Ducey Webb.

  “There must be a reason,” said Flynn.

  “None we know of. They all just up and left.”

  “This young lady is Ms. Ducey Webb,” said Flynn.

  The blusher asked, “Are you an actress?”

  “No,” said Ducey. “I work for the government.”

  “Get out of here,” said the grunter, laughing.

  The man with the knife said, “I could tell, lookin’ at you, you never did a lick of work in all your days.”

  “Some looker, though,” said the grunter.

  Flynn said to the counterman, “I’m sorry about the dollar. May I say thank you to you instead?”

  “That would be right nice of you.”

  Flynn said, “Thank you.”

  “You all come back real soon, now.”

  “Thank you,” Flynn said. “That would be nice.”

  In the parking lot of Bob’s Diner the young men were starting their motorcycles as Flynn and Ducey were getting into their cars.

  The motorcyclist who had put away his knife said, “You all need anything?”

  “Like what?” asked Flynn.

  “Directions? A place to stay?”

  “I think we’re all right,” said Flynn. “But thank you anyway.”

  “Don’t you need anything around here without hollerin’ for it.”

  “I won’t,” said Flynn.

  Two of the motorcyclists roared out of the parking lot of Bob’s Diner.

  The third—the blusher, straddling his motorcycle—came over to Flynn’s car.

  “Have you ever seen a production at the Abbey Theatre?” he asked through the car window.

  “I have,” said Flynn, over the noise of the motorcycle.

  “What have you seen?”

  “Well, I’ve seen a production of Shaw’s Saint Joan, as a matter of fact. With Siobhan McKenna.”

  “Ooo, boy,” the young man said. “That would be great.”

  “It was great, in fact.”

  The young motorcyclist said, “I sure would like to see a production at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, Ireland, someday.”

  “Tell me,” said Flynn. “Do you write poetry yourself?”

  The young man’s face again turned red.

  “No,” he said. “I work in an auto-body shop. In Bixby.”

  Leaving the parking lot, the motorcycle raised a trail of dust.

  9

  “WE’RE here, Mister Flynn.”

  Flynn had let himself into the Fraimans’ bungalow, out of the wind, yelling, “Hello? Hello?”

  “Come on in.”

  Marge Fraiman’s drawl was even slower than usual.

  He found the minister and his wife in their bedroom, sitting side by side on the edge of the bed, holding hands.

  They looked like two small children at the side of the playground, left out of all activities.

  Except the reverend’s eyes were glazed, unfocused, wandering in his head.

  The Reverend Sandy Fraiman was very drunk.

  “There you are,” said Flynn.

  Marge Fraiman said, “The devil’s in him, Mister Flynn.”

  “I’d say he has about a liter of the devil in him,” said Flynn.

  “I’m all right.” The minister brushed a fly that wasn’t there away from his nose.

/>   “He’s backslided,” Marge said. “Somethin’ terrible.”

  “I think you can answer my questions better anyway, Mrs. Fraiman,” Flynn said. “You said you were born and raised here.”

  “Yes.”

  Flynn was looking for a place to sit down.

  “Sit anywhere,” Marge said.

  There was nothing on which to sit.

  Flynn let himself down cross-legged on the bedroom floor near the window.

  “Well, now.” The room was stifling. “Just the few odd questions, Mrs. Fraiman.”

  The minister, eyes closed, said “Oh-h” and pressed his hand against his stomach.

  Marge squeezed her husband’s other hand.

  “Mrs. Fraiman, as far as you know—has anyone ever mentioned to you or to any of your friends that there might be oil under Ada?”

  “Oh, no. I mean, sure. People used to talk about it. Years ago. This area’s been surveyed time and again, over the years. Exploratory wells drilled. Well, you can still see them standing. At least one on every ranch. It’s been a dream the people have had.”

  “And oil was never found?”

  “Oh, sure there’s oil.”

  “There is oil, you say?”

  “Of course there’s oil. People know right where it is and how much there is of it.”

  “No oil,” said the minister.

  “There’s precious little of it, Mister Flynn. That’s the point. And what there is of it isn’t worth drillin’ up. Too expensive, even at current prices.”

  “I see.”

  “The companies have always been around here lookin’ for oil. Everybody gets their hopes up. The companies always show the same maps and tell everybody Ada oil just isn’t worth drilling for.”

  “But oil companies are able and willing to drill deeper now, aren’t they? Aren’t they willing to spend more money for less oil?”

  “They’re still not willin’ to spend a billion dollars for a teaspoonful, Mister Flynn.”

  “Answer me this, then: to the best of your knowledge has anyone been around these parts lately doing new surveys, or drilling new exploratory holes?”

  “Not for years.”

  “Years?”

  “Years and years. Not since—let’s see, I was in the seventh grade. What’s that, nearly twenty years ago?”

  “Do you think anyone could have been looking for oil around here without your knowing about it?”